Top Day Recommendations
12.16.11
Overnight, Fitch downgrades seven financial institutions but it’s not exactly new news. In a clumsy stab at relevancy, the agencies, after a miserable fail in 2008, s have been beating their drums at the back of the parade. Now for today’s actionable insight; Russia is beginning to view the Eurozone crisis as opportunity. Russia is set to pledge up to 10 billion through the IMF. $10 billion of that is old money scheduled for repayment. Spain raised 7.8 billion through auction yesterday. It’s important to remind myself that the EU is a monetary union not a fiscal union and that the cost of a breakup would be cataclysmic. GDPs of individual countries would be cut in half. So, let’s look for short covering up to 131 in the EC.
December currencies expire on Monday morning, first thing.
Week of December 12 - December 16
| Date | ET | Release | For | Actual | Briefing.com Briefing.com | Prior | Revised | |
| Forecast | Consensus | From | ||||||
| Dec | 14:00 | Treasury Budget | Nov | -$139.0B | -$139.5B | - | ||
| 12 | $150.4B | |||||||
| Dec | 08:30 | Retail Sales | Nov | 0.8% | 0.6% | 0.5% | ||
| Date | ET | Release | For | Actual | Briefing.com Briefing.com | Prior | Revised | |
| Forecast | Consensus | From | ||||||
| 13 | ||||||||
| Dec | 08:30 | Retail Sales ex-auto | Nov | 0.6% | 0.5% | 0.6% | ||
| 13 | ||||||||
| Dec | 10:00 | Business Inventories | Oct | 0.9% | 0.9% | 0.0% | ||
| 13 | ||||||||
| Dec | 14:15 | FOMC Rate Decision | Dec | 0.25% | 0.25% | 0.25% | ||
| 13 | ||||||||
| Dec | 07:00 | MBA Mortgage Index | 12/10 | NA | NA | 12.8% | ||
| 14 | ||||||||
| Dec | 08:30 | Export Prices ex-ag. | Nov | NA | NA | -1.5% | ||
| 14 | ||||||||
| Dec | 08:30 | Import Prices ex-oil | Nov | NA | NA | -0.2% | ||
| 14 | ||||||||
| Dec | 10:30 | Crude Inventories | 12/10 | NA | NA | 1.336M | ||
| 14 | ||||||||
| Dec | 08:30 | Initial Claims | 12/10 | 390K | 390K | 381K | ||
| 15 | ||||||||
| Dec | 08:30 | Continuing Claims | 12/03 | 3650K | 3625K | 3583K | ||
| 15 | ||||||||
| Dec | 08:30 | PPI | Nov | 0.1% | 0.2% | -0.3% | ||
| 15 | ||||||||
| Dec | 08:30 | Core PPI | Nov | 0.0% | 0.1% | 0.0% | ||
| 15 | ||||||||
| Dec | 08:30 | Empire | Dec | 3.0 | 3.0 | 0.61 | ||
| 15 | Manufacturing | |||||||
| Dec | 08:30 | Current Account | Q3 | -$111.0B | -$110.0B | - | ||
| 15 | Balance | $118.0B | ||||||
| Dec | 09:00 | Net Long-Term TIC | Oct | NA | NA | $68.6B | ||
| 15 | Flows | |||||||
| Dec | 09:15 | Industrial Production | Nov | -0.1% | 0.2% | 0.7% | ||
| 15 | ||||||||
| Dec | 09:15 | Capacity Utilization | Nov | 77.7% | 77.8% | 77.8% | ||
| 15 | ||||||||
| Dec | 10:00 | Philadelphia Fed | Dec | 4.0 | 4.3 | 3.60 | ||
| 15 | ||||||||
| Dec | 08:30 | CPI | Nov | 0.1% | 0.1% | -0.1% | ||
| 16 | ||||||||
| Dec | 08:30 | Core CPI | Nov | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.1% | ||
| 16 | ||||||||
Numbers are good up until the close of business today. These are strictly technical in nature, not fundamentally based or biased.
Legend
U is Up
D is Down
PRD is Potential Reversal Day
S2 is Weekly strong support
S1 is Weekly good support
DS is Daily Support
DR is Daily Resistance
R1 is Weekly Good Resistance
R2 is Weekly Strong Resistance
Levels are for the most active futures contract
Daily Support and Resistance
| Trend | WS2 | WS1 | DS | DR | WR1 | WR2 | |
| Mar | D | 1204 | 1228.50 | 1199.75 | 1232 | 1271.75 | 1290.50 |
| ES | |||||||
| Mar | D | 2233 | 2275 | 2208 | 2245 | 2350 | 2382 |
| Nasdaq | |||||||
| Dec | D | 127.30 | 128.15 | 128.00 | 128.70 | 129.77 | 130.54 |
| Yen | |||||||
| Dec EC | D | 131.73 | 132.72 | 129.63 | 131.00 | 134.78 | 135.85 |
| Mar 10 | U | 128.14 | 129.04 | 130.04 | 131.11 | 130.16 | 131.06 |
| Year | |||||||
| Mar 30 | U | 138.20 | 138.29 | 142.31 | 145.23 | 142.20 | 144.02 |
| Year | |||||||
| Mar | U | 10.80 | 11.19 | 11.13 | 11.31 | 11.46 | 11.77 |
| Soybea | |||||||
| ns | |||||||
| March | D | 5.69 | 5.81 | 5.72 | 5.87 | 6.05 | 6.15 |
| Corn | |||||||
| Feb | D | 1654 | 1701.5 | 1544 | 1612 | 1781 | 1814 |
| Gold | |||||||
| Mar | D | 29.89 | 31.29 | 27.86 | 30.14 | 33.91 | 35.13 |
| Silver | |||||||
| Mar | D | 315 | 336 | 317 | 337 | 373 | 389 |
| Copper | |||||||
| Jan | PRD | 95.40 | 98.25 | 102.87 | 104.62 | ||
| Crude | (D) | ||||||
N.B.: if you initiate a trade using ANY of these numbers use a STOP at least equivalent to 2 ½%.
Repeat: use Stops. Don’t think about using Stops.
Use Stops. Some find it appropriate to look at the margin requirement and use that as a Stop or if it’s a steep initial requirement, use half. But whatever you do, stop thinking about any other alternative and use Stops.
********************************************
Futures trading entails considerable risk and is not for
everyone. An account can lose more than its initial investment.
Stops are not necessarily filled at the stop level. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results.
Charles Kespert
***********************
HYPOTHETICAL PERFORMANCE RESULTS HAVE MANY INHERENT LIMITATIONS, SOME OF WHICH
ARE DESCRIBED BELOW. NO REPRESENTATION IS BEING MADE THAT ANY ACCOUNT WILL OR IS LIKELY TO ACHIEVE PROFITS OR LOSSES SIMILAR TO THOSE SHOWN. IN FACT, THERE ARE FREQUENTLY SHARP DIFFERENCES BETWEEN HYPOTHETICAL PERFORMANCE RESULTS AND THE ACTUAL RESULTS SUBSEQUENTLY ACHIEVED BY ANY PARTICULAR TRADING PROGRAM.
ONE OF THE LIMITATIONS OF HYPOTHETICAL PERFORMANCE RESULTS IS THAT THEY ARE GENERALLY PREPARED WITH THE BENEFIT OF HINDSIGHT. IN ADDITION, AL TRADING DOES NOT INVOLVE FINANCIAL RISK, AND NO HYPOTHETIOTHETICAL TRADING RECORD CAN COMPLETELY ACCOUNT FOR THE IMPACT OF FINANCIAL RISK IN ACTUAL TRADING. FOR EXAMPLE, THE ABILITY TO WITHSTAND LOSSES OR TO ADHERE TO A PARTICULAR TRADING PROGRAM IN SPITE OF TRADING LOSSES ARE MATERIAL POINTS WHICH CAN ALSO ADVERSELY AFFECT ACTUAL TRADING RESULTS. THERE ARE NUMEROUS OTHER FACTORS RELATED TO THE MARKETS IN GENERAL OR TO THE IMPLEMENTATION OF ANY SPECIFIC TRADING PROGRAM WHICH CANNOT BE FULLY ACCOUNTED FOR IN THE PREPARATION OF HYPOTHETICAL PERFORMANCE RESULTS AND ALL OF WHICH CAN ADVERSELY AFFECT ACTUAL TRADING RESULTS.